I always enjoy logging onto The Onion. Its faux news stories are wicked funny. Their specialty is satirical stories that seem vaguely plausible, but of course are completely bogus. Occasionally, people actually believe Onion stories. Recent Onion tweets reported that armed Congressmen were taking schoolchildren hostage and demanding $12 trillion in cash. Responding quickly — in real life, not the Onion — U.S. Capitol police said that the story had “no credibility” because lawmakers were on vacation. And, they are “investigating the reporting.” Draw any conclusions you want.
So, when I read an article in USA Today proclaiming that cassette tapes are making a comeback, I thought I had logged onto The Onion by mistake. Cassettes? Seriously? USA Today quotes a source who says, “A growing number of indie bands are turning to the format to get their music out more quickly and inexpensively. . . from a musicmaker standpoint, I love it because they are very inexpensive to make.” In particular, the turnaround for cassettes can be “as quick as two or three weeks.”
Right. Got it. Making tapes is faster and cheaper than sending an MP3 file.
With hard-hitting journalistic rigor, the paper supports its argument with hard-hitting statistics. Music-related cassette album sales rose 46% from last year, with a whopping 22,000 sold last year.
Whoa! That certainly confirms the comeback! 22,000 cassettes per year works out to a staggering 60 tapes every day! Jeez! Clearly, cassettes are soon going to overtake iTunes' puny 400,000 song downloads per day. What's next? Apps on cassettes?
How about the playability of cassettes? One singer/guitarist quoted in the article notes that “Everyone has tape players lying around. . . and everyone will find a way to listen to it.”
Umm. I don‘t think so.
USA Today readers were not impressed. As one reader responded, “This is fantastic!! I don't currently have a cassette player, but I sent a telegram out to an old college friend and he sent one back saying he still had one and would send it to me via Pony Express! I should receive it possibly as soon as February! I'm just hoping some of these cassettes will be available through this winter's Sears and Roebuck catalog. I must shoe the horses at once and scurry to the town drug store to inquire!”
Responding swiftly to the story, Capitol police have launched a full investigation.
Actually, cassette release in the independent scene has never completely stopped. There IS a microtrend in that area of greater cassette releases. It's clearly not on Sound and Vision Magazine's radar, but it is real. Not in Michael Jackson or Dark Side of the Moon numbers, but then again, nothing is nowadays thanks to the Internet.
I'm not surprised by Ken Pohlmann's response. He reacted the same way toward the news of the mild resurgence of vinyl and now it's undeniable (no, it's not a large market but it's plenty large enough). Ken will bash anything old and praise most things that are new. The reality is that the market for cassettes has never completely died. In fact, what we have is an audio/video electronics market that is very fragmented because of so many formats have competed for consumers' attention. The market segments correlate very closely with consumer age. Not everyone fawn's over an iPad or iPhone, Ken. For some older generations, it's not as easy to use as a cassette, CD, or LP.
I can just picture it now. Someone is going to censor this comment.
As a reader and subscriber of Sound and Visions predecesor, AKA Stereo Review I still uses cassettes, blanks from radioshack, also I am stuck in the retrogradev of OPEN REEL, I have it on the side wall of my cave next to mp LP collection, which I am gradually recording to my computer, burning on CD and Archiving on DVD, sadly I am of the Pre I anything Generation and still enjoy Hi fidelity reproduction of music, that lets out mp3 or any lossy format,
And anyway you haven't heard Thriller by MJ, or the Concert in Central Park by Simon and his buddy. till you have heard the original MFSL Mastertapes on open reel
so Mr Pohlman Please take into account that there are other opinions that count as much as, or more than yours